


birds all sing as if they knew

by nightcamedown



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Team as Family, The Most Married of Marrieds, The Purest of Fluff, everything is beautiful and nicky's high
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28281558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightcamedown/pseuds/nightcamedown
Summary: ❄️ TOG Gift Exchange fic forjackwolfskid❄️Nile smiled back at him. “How’re you feeling, buddy?”“I think there were drugs in there,” he said immediately and way too loudly, staring at her with those hugely sincere eyes like this was revelatory information.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 33
Kudos: 184
Collections: The Old Guard Gift Exchange 2020





	birds all sing as if they knew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jackwolfskid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackwolfskid/gifts).



Nile took a swig from her water bottle and poked at the cracked asphalt beneath her feet with the toe of her boot. She was pretty sure it had already been cracked before they blew up the laboratory, the remains of which were currently smoldering a hundred yards to their left, but it was hard to tell. It had been a hell of a big explosion.

But at least they hadn’t had to haul ass to avoid getting blown up themselves, which they had definitely had to do the last three times their mission had involved explosives. They’d been able to take their time after freeing the unwilling test subjects and neutralizing the meager opposition on site, and mosey on out into the sunshine at their own pace before pressing the big red button. Everything had worked out great.

Well. Almost everything.

She hung her water bottle back on her belt, tucked her thumbs comfortably under the edges of her tactical vest and looked down at Nicky, who was sitting on the ground with his back resting against a low concrete barrier between the parking lot and the road and his legs sprawled out awkwardly in front of him.

He looked up at her with dazed eyes and gave her a smile as slow and sweet as molasses.

Nile smiled back at him. "How’re you feeling, buddy?"

"I think there were drugs in there," he said immediately and way too loudly, staring at her with those hugely sincere eyes like this was revelatory information.

It wasn't clear exactly what substance had been in the containers exploding around Nicky as he had cleared the final lab alone in a hail of gunfire, but whatever it was, he was feeling no pain. He’d come stumbling out into the lobby, wide-eyed and flushed, as Andy and Nile had handed the last of the sobbingly grateful patient-prisoners a set of car keys and pushed them out the door. Andy had taken one look at him and burst into laughter, and since then they’d basically just been steering him from place to place as they worked while he held their hands and told them earnestly how pretty they were, and how smart, and how much he liked them.

Now Nile swallowed a laugh but Andy, standing next to Nicky with her hip tilted against the barrier, cackled openly and leaned over to ruffle his hair. He closed his eyes with a happy sound and pushed into her hand in totally unselfconscious pleasure. Drugged Nicky was a snuggly Nicky, apparently.

"Yeah, I think there were," Nile said solemnly. "You’ll be okay, though. Your system will clear it soon."

He nodded as Andy gave him a final ruffle and withdrew her hand, tipping his head back against the barrier and letting his eyes wander the horizon. After a moment he blinked and asked, dreamily, "Where's Joe?"

Nile patted his shoulder and said, "He'll be here in a minute," in a reassuring tone, just like she’d done the last seven times he’d asked the same thing. Joe and Booker were clearing the computer servers housed in a building at the other end of the compound, but that information hadn't stuck the first three times she'd explained it so she'd given up.

"Good, good," Nicky said, nodding and repeating himself a few more times under his breath, _good, good, good_ , frowning vaguely like the word tasted funny on his tongue. He sighed. "I hope he gets here soon. I love Joe."

"I know you do."

He peered up at her, delighted. “Yeah?"

Nile laughed, and crouched down to talk to him on his level. "Yeah, I can tell."

"We're married," he almost-whispered, pitching toward her as if telling her a great secret.

"I know that, too," she whispered back, giving him a conspiratorial wink. He beamed at her. “But here’s something I don’t know. How long?”

His forehead creased in thought. "Seven hundred years, I think? Since the first time."

"And how many times—" Nile started, but his gaze lifted over her shoulder and joy broke like a sunrise over his face.

"Joe!" he said, as Joe and Booker materialized out of the smoke drifting across the parking lot. Joe smiled back at him, then narrowed his eyes in concern as he got close enough to see Nicky's high color and blown pupils.

"He's fine," Andy said cheerfully, forestalling Joe's question as Nile stood and stretched, making room for him to reach Nicky. She nodded at Booker as he came to lean against the barrier next to her. "Just high as fuck. We're waiting it out."

"You feeling okay, babe?” Joe knelt down in front of Nicky, who tracked his movement with eager eyes. "It doesn't hurt?"

"No, I'm okay. It doesn't hurt. Joe, I didn't know there were drugs," Nicky said with an expression of profound seriousness, which was only made more hilarious by the fact that he was talking at double speed and still _way_ too loudly, "except I remember when I went into the building the sky was clear and blue, and now the sky is still clear but it's twelve blues." He blinked. "And I can taste it."

Joe grinned at him, and leaned forward to drop a quick kiss against his cheek. “Twelve blues, huh? That doesn’t sound too bad.” He shifted around to sit cross-legged in front of Nicky and took off his backpack, pulling a water bottle out of it before setting the pack aside. “Actually it sounds beautiful."

"You're beautiful," Nicky said. Joe laughed a thank you under his breath as he uncapped his water bottle, and Nicky leaned forward intently. "Joe, I mean it. _Beautiful_.”

"You're beautiful, too, my heart," Joe said, pressing the bottle into his hands. "Please drink some water."

Nicky did. Then he swayed forward again over Joe’s lap, his gaze fixed on Joe's lips the whole time, stopping at the last moment with a frown. “I can kiss you?"

"Yes," Joe said solemnly. "Any time you like."

Nicky pressed his lips to Joe's, chastely enough, except that his eyes stayed wide open the whole time and his cheeks flushed a darker pink as the kiss stretched on. He pulled back and said, as if amazed, "Any time?"

"Yes," Joe said again, sounding, perhaps in spite of himself, a little affected.

“Thank you,” Nicky said breathlessly, then he was climbing into Joe’s lap, winding his arms around Joe’s neck.

Andy laughed again. "Oh boy. Here we go."

Joe smiled, wrapping a loose hug around Nicky's waist and tipping his head back, happy to let Nicky rain little kisses across his face. "Come on, boss, don’t harsh his buzz."

Nile raised an eyebrow. "Is he going to be embarrassed about this later?"

"Nah," Booker said, yawning behind his hand. "He hasn’t been embarrassed since the twelfth century."

Andy nodded in agreement, then said, "Hey, Romeo," and nudged Nicky's ankle with her foot. "Nile was asking how many times you two have been married."

"Six," Nicky said, pausing the parade of kisses, right as Joe said, "Seven."

"No, Joe, _six_ ," Nicky said loudly, leaning back with his hands flat on Joe’s chest, and Nile laughed at the stubborn look on his face.

"Seven,” Joe said, eyes twinkling as he wound Nicky up into what was clearly a familiar fight, “because you and I and Andy were on a boat - "

"But Andy was not the captain - "

"But Andy’s _our_ captain, so it should still count," Joe said, but he was leaning back on his hands, helplessly amused in the face of Nicky's flushed cheeks and rising ire.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Nicky half-shouted, and kept going in rapid, voluble Italian, gesturing emphatically, his face as expressive as Nile had ever seen it. She got something about the eyes of God and the laws of the sea, and a comparison, clearly disparaging, to the eyes of Andy who was _not_ a proper captain and the laws of Joe which were _not_ laws -

Until Joe grinned up at him and said, “Okay, okay. You win. So let's get married again."

Nicky's tirade came to an abrupt stop, terminating on a questioning noise, as if he wasn't sure he'd heard correctly.

"Yeah," Joe said, leaning in to peck another kiss to Nicky’s cheek, “let's do it. Lucky number seven."

"Joe," Nicky said, eyes wide, his voice gone soft with wonder, as his hands slid up to rest on Joe's shoulders. "You want to marry me?"

There it was, Nile thought, not surprised in the slightest to see Joe’s arms tighten around Nicky’s waist as his teasing smile faded away. She traded a smile with Andy over their heads; Booker rolled his eyes but it didn’t do much to counteract how fond his expression was.

"Yes,” Joe said. His throat worked once. "Very much."

"Again?" Nicky breathed.

“I can't marry you enough, as far as I'm concerned."

Nicky's eyes shone. His fingers gripped Joe's shoulders more tightly. "At sea?"

"Yes, please,” Joe said hoarsely, “properly this time," and pulled Nicky down into another kiss.

“We still have that sailboat docked in Biarritz,” Andy mused. “But I don't think that's gonna work."

"On it, boss," Booker said, already tapping away on his phone.

Nile gave them a questioning look.

"Well," Andy said, giving Nile a wink, "there's more of us now. We're gonna need a bigger boat."

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays @jackwolfskid! Thanks for requesting positivity, I was happy to lean into the schmoopy vibes :D


End file.
